So, I saw this t-shirt a few months ago. It said ‘Being Human’ in a beautiful, blue cursive font. It immediately caught my eye: the fact being that it said ‘HELP’ above ‘Being Human’.

Ever since I bought that t-shirt, it’s been one of my favorites. I may be wearing it while you read this.

I know it sounds weird, but buying that t-shirt led me to think about the connection between helping and being human. Morally speaking, I thought, aren’t they essentially the same thing? However then I think of how a considerable fraction of the population has forgotten said connection. Our culture has undergone so many drastic changes, it’s now a cultural norm to be afraid of helping people who need it, lest we be labelled as ‘insane’.

Either I’ve got a few loose screws rattling around in my head, or have been through a life-changing experience, clouding my logical judgment. Why can’t I just be a guy who likes to help people? Rather than being proud of standing out, and more importantly, being human, we choose to instead embrace the comfort of blending in and trying to be ‘normal’.

Being inhumane isn’t what I would call ‘normal’. Idly passing by while a group of construction workers toil in the heat is not ‘normal’. In light of recent events in India, I introduce a topic that is greeted with rage and hypocrisy – rape. It is a valid question to ask that when women are abused in public, why does nobody come to their aid? When a lost girl is crying in the middle of the street, where is our attention? It isn’t necessarily an act of contempt on our part, but most of the time [as obvious in this ‘Good Samaritan’ Experiment], we’re far too self-involved to notice the world around us. The concerns of fellow beings are non-existent as we are swallowed by our own thoughts, feelings and plans on a daily basis.

We’re an amazing race, humans; we’ve allowed nothing of our kind to change in the past couple of hundred years, except thinking what others will think of us. Our ancestors were technologically, medically, and in every other sense, weaker than us. Yet, I wonderho’s really richer:s or them? We’ve come a long way, evolutionarily speaking. The human race has made tremendous advancements in the field of technology, but it seems to be at the expense of our basic sensitivity. After all, the most we are motivated to do after witnessing something horrendous is write a ‘deep and feely’ status about it. Then… we simply forget about it. And that, ladies and gents, is why aliens don’t talk to us. {I must seem like a hypocrite now, mustn’t I?}

I speak from experience when I say that it feels good. Helping feels overwhelmingly good. Whether it’s helping a classmate with their homework within the ongoing chaos of the classroom, helping a stranger with a flat tire, keeping the door open for someone behind you, letting a person in a hurry cut the queue in front you, or something as simple as giving a hug to someone who’s had a long day, it gives us the satisfaction of being there for someone.

The joy you get when you know you have it in you to be instrumental, even in a small way, in someone’s life is incomparable, and that act is indelible in that someone’s memory.

Tell us a story you’ve lived in the comments below.